


Missed Connections (Match Makers outtakes/extras)

by caitlinrose923



Series: Match Makers Universe [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Anti-Neal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 07:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12789555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitlinrose923/pseuds/caitlinrose923
Summary: A collection of one-shots from the Match Makers 'verse.Always taking prompts :)





	Missed Connections (Match Makers outtakes/extras)

**Author's Note:**

> My very first outtake from the Match Makers 'verse is dedicated to KiwistreetSwan, who really wanted to see Neal get what was coming to him.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE this outtake is to be read AFTER Chapter 16 of Match Makers!!!!!!
> 
> I am ALWAYS taking prompts for this collection, so feel free to comment with requests or send them to my Tumblr (awkwardnessandbaseball)

Neal could not _fucking_ believe he’d been so stupid.

First, he’d let Emma get away. He’d never get that lucky again. Emma was gorgeous and smart. She worked hard for everything she had. Every other girl Neal had ever dated had been a spoiled princess, daughters of his dad’s friends or something.

Then, he’d sent her right into the arms of some asshole she worked with. Killian _freaking_ Jones? Neal had trusted Jones – thought Emma spending all her time talking to him meant that when she came home, Neal wouldn’t have to hear her complain. But it turned out that while they _talked_ they also started to _like each other_. At first, he thought it was one-sided: just some sad guy in love with Neal’s fiancé. But then, it turned out, she’d fallen in love right back.

What a bitch.

Finally, Neal had gotten drunk and gone back to his old stomping grounds, which was, by far, the worst mistake of them all.

He could barely even remember being angry. He’d been so wasted. He remembered yelling and getting punched. He remembered machinery moving.

He did not remember putting Killian Jones’ hand _inside_ said machinery.

Neal’s dad had offered to get him the best lawyers, from his own firm, to fight everything they threw at him. But the price of those lawyers would have been too much. Financially, sure, Robert _Dickhead_ Gold would have covered everything. But then he would have expected more of a relationship from Neal. He would have had to have weekly dinners over there or he would have had to get a job at Robert’s firm or something ridiculous.

The weeks they’d spent building a library for Belle had been enough. Neal never wanted to be in close quarters with his father again, if he could help it.

In the end, he’d gotten off really easy. Six months in jail, a few years’ probation, and a lot of restitution for the now-one-handed-wonder. It had been his first offense, and even without Robert Gold’s lawyers, the name still had weight.

He was reading out by the basketball court one afternoon when a group of men approached him.

“You Gold?” one of them asked. He had a toothy grin and his eyes were vacant.

“Um, yeah. That’s me. Who’s asking?”

“We’re friends of a friend, let’s say,” a tall, thin man with glasses replied. He was older than the rest, and didn’t seem to fit in, even with such a ragtag group.

“Who’s the friend?” Neal was completely lost.

“Come with us real nice…,” a redheaded man said.

“…and we’ll tell you,” finished an identical man next to him.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“We’re already terribly late, so we really should hurry this along,” the older man chimed in.

The five men surrounded Neal and grabbed him. The guards were looking in another direction – on purpose? – and Neal was easily dragged, a hand over his mouth, around the corner to a secluded area.

“We just want you to know that we don’t take kindly to mistreatment of women here,” the toothy man said as he kicked Neal’s knees out from under him. Suddenly all five men were towering over Neal. Where the hell were the guards?

“What are you talking about?”

“Heard you called a friend of our friend a ‘slut’ and some other equally unimaginative but cruel terms,” the older gentleman, who’d looked innocent enough by the courts, in the sunlight and open spaces, now looked menacing and honestly kind of scary.

“Are you talking about Emma Swan?”

“Indeed. You’re getting closer,” the last man finally spoke, a short man with a rat-looking face.

“See, we heard how you talked about her,” a redhead said.

“…and we didn’t like it one bit,” the other continued.

Before Neal knew it, there was a flurry of feet and knees and elbows and fists. He went from kneeling to curling up in the fetal position, but still, they hit and hit and hit.

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Why are you doing this?”

“Apologize!”

“I’m sorry!”

“For what?”

“I don’t _know_! Whatever it is that’s making you hit me!”

One of the redheads kicked his chin and he bit his tongue. He couldn’t speak for all the pain he was in.

Finally, the vacant-eyed man kneeled down and put his face right in front of Neal’s.

“We’re friends of Jefferson. He works at that paper company you came from. He’s got a soft spot for someone you treated poorly. And so he asked us to do him a favor, since we’re all going to be in such _close quarters_ for a few months.”

“Hatter?” Neal slurred, trying to keep his eyes open. Jefferson Hatter had been in charge of quality control at SPC. He mostly spent his time speaking in riddles and pretending to do work, not ever actually checking the quality of the products shipping out from the warehouse. Neal had barely ever spoken three words to the guy.

“That’s the one.”

“You know, he gave pretty specific instructions, but we decided to take it easy on you. For now.”

“Would you like to know what he _told_ us he wanted?”

Neal’s head was spinning, he couldn’t keep track of who was speaking anymore.

“His exact words were…,”

“ _Off with his head_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Did Neal get what he deserved or...?


End file.
